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Foods and Drinks for Healthy Eating

Healthy eating is smart eating. It includes eating nutrition-rich foods and drinks that our body needs. We need these nutrients for energy, to prevent risk of diseases and stay healthy. Healthy eating doesn’t apply to foods only but also for certain drinks.

How do we know which foods are healthy?

Some of the characteristics of healthy foods include the following:

Healthy foods are rich with nutrients, especially ones that are vital to the body.

Whole foods that are natural and do not contain artificial ingredients

Packed with nutrients like vitamins and minerals

Do not contain synthetic ingredients as well such as coloring

Did not undergo artificial processing or do not contain food processing ingredients such as processed cheese and so on

Healthy Foods

Fruits and vegetables are the world’s natural and most nutrition rich foods. Therefore, they are essential to healthy eating.

Healthy Drinks

Apart from foods, drinks can be healthy too. They can help boost the immune system and can reduce the risk of cancer. The most common natural drink is of course water. Water cleanses the skin and keeps the body hydrated. It is literally essential for survival. People can survive for weeks without food but won’t last for days without water.

Other drinks that help our body and are good to be consumed for health purposes are different types of tea. Tea helps reduce the risk of diseases such as cancer, heart disease, prevents tooth decay, and also refreshes your mood. Tea does not contain calories too. Tea without milk or cream is in fact probably the only drink that doesn’t contain any calorie. Tea is even more recommended than coffee as coffee contains caffeine that is harmful to the body at excessive amounts. Some of the types of tea that are considered healthy include green tea, mint tea, etc.

Other healthy drinks include soy milk, fat free milk, tomato juice, fruit juices such as cranberry, orange, etc., hot chocolate and even alcohol particularly wine. However, alcohol can bring about both harm and good. It depends on the amount of intake and the person drinking it. Just like medicine, it causes more harm than good if you don’t take it as prescribed. In the same way, you should know how much, when to drink, and what types of alcohol to drink. Safely said, drinking wine should be in moderation.

As for the other types of healthy drinks mentioned like low fat or fat free milk, these help stabilize blood sugar and even contribute to weight lose. Soy milk lowers cholesterol level and reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases. However, drinking soy milk may increase the risk of breast cancer when taken beyond moderate levels. Hot chocolate on the other hand improves mood and protects against heart diseases. It also tastes great so you won’t have any problem serving them to kids. Lastly, juice drinks are rich in vitamins and they too help prevent and fight diseases.

Conclusion

In conclusion, foods that are natural contain the most beneficial nutrients and they are the best foods for healthy eating. Water is the only natural drink but it is the healthiest drink ever. However, you should not restrict your diet to just wholegrain foods, fruits, vegetables and water. You should also include a variety of foods and drinks in your diet and do so in moderation.